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The last few days we’ve had a toad wandering about near the back door. It ambled out from under the guinea pig’s carpet off-cut weather cover when I rearranged the hutch, and although I released it in the hedge it reappeared in the same place

We have a rambler rose just outside the back door, 'Félicité et Perpétue'. No matter how hard I cut it back, it still fights vigorously with the wooden slats of the featheredge fence, tries to smother the garden table and viciously rakes at my

. And yet it is precisely this shelter which is most in danger of being tidied away, cut down, mulched, shredded, composted or otherwise removed to make way for next year's grand displays.If you want wildlife to feel at home in your garden, let it make a

The orb webs of the garden spider, Araneus diadematus are much in evidence as the nights get cooler, especially in the morning when their dew- or rain-covered tracery is revealed all over the bushes.It's fascinating to watch them being created first

to chalk up 15 of my 124 target actions. These are mostly by the simple expedient of not cutting the grass, not winter deadheading, clearing out the pond when I repaired it and by having more than my fair share of thickets.The thickets are obviously paying

of worm regeneration.The trouble is that if a worm is cut in two, both halves wriggle, and they may continue for some time. The head end, the bit with the fat broad saddle segments about one-quarter down the length, may even burrow off into the soil again

It's been a very good year for codling moths in our garden. I can't say I've seen many of the moths themselves, but it's obvious there are plenty of them. Each time I cut into one of the windfall apples I am met with a crumbling mouldy brown mass

of how interested in wildlife the owners of these myriad plots actually are. I, and 54,450 others, registered with the scheme, and 26,197 actively participated in it by surveying wildlife or reporting changing garden activities.It turns out I am not a

The night air is rent by unearthly shrieks. Stammered yelps and horrid guttural whimpers cut through the silence. It sounds like witches are murdering some poor soul deep in a well at the end of my garden. The foxes are out in force tonight

, but the land tips steeply down to the sea presenting the perfect soil-warming angle to the sun.I think we are the first residents of the bungalow this year and the garden has been recently 'tidied' i.e. savagely cut, mown, and cleared. The pampas grass tussock